


When There's Nothing Left

by birdup (captainmycatisthedevil)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, BAMF Erica, BAMF Lydia Martin, BAMF Stiles, Gen, Hurt Scott, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rebellion, Violence, i mean its the hunger games, this is a little dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 05:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10506819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainmycatisthedevil/pseuds/birdup
Summary: There's a rebellion stirring in Beacon. But the different factions are scattered throughout the districts, disjointed and hidden under the thumb of the capitol. Until Scott McCall wins the 99th Hunger Games.





	

Stiles watches as the boy takes the stage in District 5, pulling anxiously at the nice, clean shirt the capitol has dressed him in. The boy, Scott McCall, clears his throat into the microphone. His voice cracks on the first words. _God, he’s only 14_ Stiles thinks.

 

“Thank you for being here and welcoming me to your beautiful district. I want to congratulate you on sending two brave tributes to the 99th Hunger Games. They fought like warriors.” Erica scoffs next to Stiles, and rolls her eyes. Stiles shushes her, but she turns the sound down on the monitor and stands up.

 

“Those kids weren’t fucking warriors. I remember them cramming that stupid speech into my hands. Did you know the mother of one of the tributes in district 6 tried to throw a rock at me? She was taken down by the peacekeepers before she could do more than raise her arm. She was screaming when I left the district. I slit her little girl’s throat.” Erica is grinning, but it looks brittle. Stiles knows better than to reach out and touch Erica when she’s upset, but his fingers itch with the impulse. The McCall kid’s speech is over and he looks out into the crowd like a lost puppy as they hustle him back into the justice building.

 

“It’s happening” Stiles’ notes detachedly, as the crowd stays gathered around the justice building long after the McCall kid has disappeared. People are starting to get rowdy, shouting things at the peacekeepers and jostling each other. “They’re rallying around him, Erica. I think it’s actually time.” Erica looks back at him solemnly.

 

There’d been talk of rebellion for years. Each time an insurgency arose, it was soon culled by the capitol. Stiles remembers when he was a kid and his father would stay late at the factory for “extra meetings”. It wasn’t until his father was killed publically that Stiles found out those had been meetings to plan a rebellion. A hundred men and women were killed for treason against the president, and that was the end of that. Stiles went to work in the factory the next year, and kept his head down.

 

And then when he was 15 he was reaped. He remembers his chest seizing, a cold sweat coming over him. He thinks that everyone longs for _someone_ to volunteer for them, no matter how brave or prepared you think you are to hear your name read from that stage. But no one said anything as he shakily climbed up and took his spot in front of the crowd. Kids from District 8 don’t usually make it very far. To grow up in an industrial landscape and be thrust into a desert, or a forest, leaves District 8 children dazed and unprepared. What good is a textile factory worker in an ocean arena?

 

But he survived. The 89th Hunger Games were in an arena of old tunnels, a maze of horrors. He knows he was lucky compared to his neighbor’s kid who was forced into a lush jungle in her games. She died on the first night. Stiles’ mentor told him straight up that he would not win. He was too small, too thin, too weak compared to the other tributes. His training score was a 5. But Stiles bided his time. He found that the tunnels often had rafters and would scrabble up to wait with baited breath while the other tributes ran after each other below him, his fingers bloody and spasming.

 

He couldn’t have survived without the other District 8 tribute, Braeden. She was an 18-year-old weaver, her hands capable and strong. She found Stiles desperately licking the condensation off of the walls of the tunnel three days into the games, and had taken him under her wing. About a week in she took an axe to the back covering Stiles with her body. Stiles doesn’t really remember what happened after that, just the feeling of the career who killed Braeden thrashing desperately as Stiles held his head down in a dirty puddle of water. But he vividly remembers when the boy finally went limp, his limbs floating and bobbing.

 

The next morning Stiles slit the throat of the girl from District 2 after a drawn out chase and became the victor of the 89th Hunger Games. The girl from 2 had found him sleeping next to Braeden’s body and chased him through the tunnels until landing a blow on the back of his head. With his head throbbing and his vision blurry, Stiles struggled desperately with the girl. Eventually he took the knife she had plunged into his side, and slit her throat with it.

 

He remembers calling her a “brave warrior” on his victory tour, just like McCall. At least McCall hadn’t killed the kids he spoke about.

 

Erica won her games two years after Stiles had. Stiles hadn’t been her mentor, thank god, but he watched her games as much as he could. Thankfully her arena had looked nothing like his, but whenever the cannon sounded Stiles had to turn off the monitor and take a walk. Her approach was less passive than Stiles’ had been. Erica is lethal with a knife. She lives with him now in the victor’s village. For the first year she had her own house, but neither of them had any family to live with them and they had eventually gravitated towards each other.

 

Erica was the one who rekindled his hatred. After his games he was numb, sitting in his new house staring out at the run-down tenements of District 8 and wishing that he had taken the axe instead of Braeden. And then Erica won the Hunger Games and came home spitting mad. She refused to read any of the victory speeches that her mentor wrote for her, and instead would stand on the stage with peacekeepers close to her sides and glare defiantly out at the crowds before being dragged back inside. Stiles is honestly surprised that the capitol let her live, but figures that killing her so soon after her victory would have been too much of a PR nightmare, even for President Deucalion.

 

When she moved into the victory village, Stiles left her alone. At night when he sat awake on his roof, feeling safer high above the ground (he knows how the games broke him. He’s not an idiot), he would hear Erica smashing dishes and screaming inside her house. After a few months of avoiding her she stormed into his house one night before he could escape up to the roof.

 

“STILINSKI. Get down here! I’ve given you your fucking space, you asshole, but it’s time to face the music! If you think—“

 

Stiles came sprinting down the stairs.

 

“Erica, shut the fuck up! You’re going to get the peacekeepers called on us!”

 

“I don’t fucking care, you coward! I hope they come, I hope President Deucalion himself shows up so I can strangle his fucking neck!”

 

Stiles slapped his hand over Erica’s mouth and hissed, “that’s treason you moron, you’re going to get us both killed— _ow, fuck”_ he yelped as Erica bit his hand and drew blood.

 

“I’d rather be killed by a peacekeeper speaking my mind than sit in these mansions like a ghost while more kids get murdered.”

 

Stiles stared at her, shocked.

 

“Fuck you, Stilinski. I wish you had died instead of Braeden. She was brave.” And with that Erica stalked out of Stiles’ house, while Stiles rushed to the bathroom to throw up, plagued visions of Braeden’s unseeing eyes and the heat of her blood on his hands.

 

Two weeks later Stiles was leaving his house when he was tackled to the ground. He writhed, panicked, and tried to flip over so he could face his attacker. Instead, his face was ground into the dirt roughly, a knee shoved firmly into the small of his back.

 

“Stay on your toes, Stilinski. Your life isn’t over even though you act like it is.” Erica’s voice whispered roughly into his ear, and then she pushed off of him and walked away. Stiles could only pant as he watched her disappear into her house.

 

The next day Stiles knocked loudly on Erica’s front door. As soon as she opened it he punched her directly in the face. Erica grinned proudly at Stiles from beneath the blood gushing from her nose and pulled him into her house. Together they devised a training regiment, Erica training Stiles on how to use knives, Stiles training Erica on climbing and agility. They worked in an abandoned warehouse close to the victor’s village. It soothed something in Stiles that he didn’t realize was still restless and uneasy. Soon Stiles could feel the strength building in his muscles, could hit a target clear across the warehouse with a knife.

 

The next year Stiles is chosen as the mentor. He mentors a 13-year-old girl named Alyssa and a 16-year-old boy named Sam. They both die within the first five minutes and Stiles sinks into an alcohol-induced haze for a while until Erica throws him into the shower and pours all of his booze down the sink. He sits there on the floor of the fancy capitol shower and thinks about how nothing he said helped his tributes at all. How none of his advice kept the arrow from going through Alyssa’s eye or the knife out of Sam’s stomach. When Erica steps into the shower and sinks down to sit next to Stiles he looks up at her and slurs “how did we even survive?” before bursting into wrenching sobs.

 

She just holds him and tells him over and over “we have to be strong, Stiles, we have to be strong”.

 

Erica and Stiles develop a reputation at the capitol as the “Danger Twins”. Stiles thinks it’s embarrassing and cheesy, but Erica tells him to suck it up and milk it. It can only help them that the citizens love them. They attend parties dressed to the nines, talk to other victors and mentors. When they are interviewed they are dangerous and charming, blasé about the things they have done and reveling in the public eye.

 

Stiles’ job at parties was to schmooze. He tried his best to be charming and funny, channeling his natural sarcasm into being the life of the party. It took attention away from Erica, who couldn’t quite hide the violent anger she has for the capitol the way that Stiles could, and people tended to be too afraid of her to be truly comfortable. He became the loveable party boy of the capitol, and under that protective cover Erica made them connections. If you looked carefully you could find past victors who also harbored the same guilt and righteous anger that fueled Erica and kept Stiles up at night. If you looked carefully you could find the beginnings of a rebellion.

 

Quickly, Erica became friends with Deaton, a mentor from District 11 and one of the leaders of the District 11 rebel group. He was a stern middle-aged man who won his games by manipulating the other tributes and waiting to strike. He was calm and authoritative, and Stiles speculated that he would lead when the time came. Erica always wrinkled her nose at this, but Stiles could tell that she respected the older man. Erica also befriended Lydia Martin, a ruthless victor from District 6, one of the districts with the biggest group of rebels. Everyone says that Lydia lost her mind in the games but Stiles can still see the bright cunning in her eyes. People find her off-putting, as she seems to dissect your very nature when she stares at you, her doll’s eyes looking on, unblinking. And she’s sharp, often offending people with her unflinching discussions of violence and lack of social niceties. Erica absolutely loves her, and Stiles knows that there would be no revolution without her. Stiles met with them under the cover of night, sending messages through the train system when he and Erica were back in District 8. The phone lines aren’t trustworthy.

 

But the rebellion was disjointed. So many of the mentors and past victors that came to the capitol were vapid alcoholics or broken people so far gone into pill addiction that they couldn’t be reasoned with. Those people had no interest in resistance, and that was whom Stiles was charged with befriending. That was whom he lorded over at parties.

 

But there were others who had connections to movements in their districts, whisperings of organization and uprising. These groups had leaders that were connecting the dots, but there was no cohesive mobilization that was possible under the thumb of the capitol. Until Scott McCall won the 99th Hunger Games.

 

 

The train doesn’t rattle. That had always bothered Scott, even as he was heading into the games the first time, scared out of his mind. Now he sits by the window and watches the landscape speed by, annoyed by how smoothly the train runs.

 

Deaton enters the room with swish as the door swings open, startling Scott out of his thoughts.

 

“Hello, Mr. McCall. How was your rest?” Deaton asks, gently sitting down opposite Scott and depositing a plate of food in front of him. Scott smiles gratefully at his mentor. He honestly doesn’t know what he would do without Deaton.

 

“It, uh, it was fine” Scott winces, knowing he sounds so fake. He’s never been a great liar, just ask his mom. A pang goes through Scott. God, he could really use his mom with him right about now.

 

The truth is that Scott hasn’t really been sleeping. It’s been weeks since the helicopter lifted him out of the fields of corn and into the arms of the capitol, but each night is like being dropped back into the games. He still sees the face of the girl that sacrificed her life to save Scott from the careers, a kid named Allison from District 9. Scott thinks she saved him because he was looking after the little boy from District 9, Isaac, but it gets hard to think the best of people in the games. Scott tries as hard as he can.

 

But it’s Isaac that keeps Scott up at night, memories of him that wake him in the early light of morning, shaking and crying. It’s like his body is sitting across from Deaton but his mind will always be stuck in that field with Isaac’s body. Scott’s plan had always been stay quiet, stay hidden, stay smart. That’s what Deaton had drilled into his head from the moment his name was read at the reaping. Instead of wasting his time at the combat stations during training, Deaton had him identifying edible plants and practicing setting snares.

 

Scott knows he’s pretty average sized for a 14-year-old, but the blonde boy at the knot tying station was small, even for 12 years old. Scott had knelt down next the boy and asked “what’s your name?”

 

“Isaac” the boy replied quietly. From there Scott lead Isaac over to the camouflage station, where they worked together on disguising their bodies, and then to lunch. Wherever Scott went, Isaac followed. Scott had made other allies, an older boy named Liam who helped Scott learn how to hold a bow. Liam stayed with Scott and Isaac in the games until the fourth day when he was taken down by another tribute while trying to lead danger away from the camp the three of them had set up. Scott made sure that he and Isaac went back for Liam’s body and closed his eyes, carefully arranging a bouquet of flowers in his lifeless hands. That’s when Scott first used his District’s symbol of respect for a life lost, three fingers pressed over the heart and then the temple.

 

Isaac died two days later, surrounded by careers while Scott was out checking on the snares they had set. By the time Scott returned to camp it was too late and Isaac was bleeding out by the remnants of their fire. When Scott threw himself at the two careers and was losing badly it was Allison who killed the one holding Scott. When Allison took off running Scott threw a discarded knife at the last career and killed him. It was the only life he took in the arena.

 

Their camp was made in the tall corn that characterized most of the arena. There were no flowers growing anywhere near them, nothing beautiful to give to Isaac as a last gift. So Scott wove him a crown from the corn stalks and placed it on his blonde curls. Looking directly into the cameras he once more gave his district’s salute, and pressed a gentle kiss against Isaac’s head. Isaac’s body was gone by the time Scott woke up the next morning, the cannon signaling his death ringing in Scott’s head.

 

So Scott sits in the window of the train, almost done with his hollow victory tour, and wishes desperately that he had the power to save someone. _Anyone._ He hates getting on stage and looking into the empty eyes of the people in the districts, the families of kids who died while Scott still lived. It feels empty knowing that no matter how hard he tried he still had to close Isaac’s lifeless eyes. That though Allison was the courageous one Scott still lived to assure her family that she was a “brave warrior”.

 

Deaton pulls Scott out of his thoughts with a concerned hand on his shoulder. Scott just smiles wanly and goes back to eating his breakfast.

 

“Today you are addressing District 7. The same speech will do just fine.” Scott just nods, unhappy with the impersonal words the capitol expects of him but used to his duties. He just wanted to walk up to the microphone and somehow convey just how _sorry_ he was that he was the one standing on the stage. How sorry he was that not all of their children got a proper send off when they died, just the sound of a canon and a message in the sky. Sorry that their children were ever sent off to the games in the first place.

 

He stands on the stage of District 7 and clears his throat, preparing to give the same speech he had given at every single district before this one. But before he begins speaking he makes eye contact with the sister of one of the fallen tributes, just a young girl. She’s crying steadily and quietly in front of the hologram of her dead brother. Scott steels his reserve.

 

“Hello. I am here before you today the victor of the 99th Hunger Games, but not because of any of my own doing. I was sent into that arena just like your children, scared and alone. But each one of us was brave, and tried to do their best, and because of that I survived. I am _so sorry_ that your children aren’t here. They weren’t brave warriors: none of us were. And they deserved more. My thoughts and love are with District 7 in this time. Thank you.” And then Scott saluted the crowd, showed the fallen tributes respect the only way he knew how. And the crowd responded. One by one they gave the salute of District 11, three fingers pressed to the heart and then to the temple. By the time Scott was dragged back into the justice building, peacekeepers were already amongst the crowd beating people down. The doors shut on chaos.


End file.
